I got a "Candy Bowl" idea from my friend Shannon. The idea being that when the children heard words or phrases from talks, they could choose a piece of candy from a corresponding bowl. My friend used simple words (pray, family, Jesus, temple, etc.), but I opted to do fewer choices and chose things that weren't likely to come up every few seconds. (My children eat way too much sugar as it is. I'm not exactly sure why I even opted to do this "good idea" in the first place.)
Instead of the desired result I was hoping for, all it seemed to do was encourage dishonesty, exaggeration and over-eating...
It seemed every few seconds, Drew would come up to me and whisper in my ear, "I heard them say 'families are forever' or "They just said 'the Atonement of Jesus Christ.'" Apparently Drew wasn't paying close attention enough to know that the speaker had just barely stood up at the pulpit and hadn't even greeted the audience, let alone announced his topic or said the highly favored words, "Families are forever." The poor kid did eventually hear one "Atonement of Jesus Christ" phrase all by himself and you'd have thought he won the jackpot, rather than just been granted permission to eat one Mini-Egg.
Ellie on the other hand was saying such things as, "They just said the word 'man', a man is part of a family!"
Who knows if Mike was listening or not. According to his eating of Cinnamon Bears (his favorite) you would think "any story of Jesus' life" was being talked about non-stop. Mike eventually conceded that the bowls weren't a good idea either... "I don't like that you have these sitting out. I can't stop eating them."
The bowls of candy, well, what is left of them, have now been hidden. It remains to be seen whether or not the bowls will be a part of our General Conference viewing tomorrow.
You rock! I have tried the candy bowls before too with much the same results. Also my kids don't get into the packets much either. What I'm trying to teach them is conference is important and I think we do that.
ReplyDeleteI have been doing this for a few years now. It has worked ok for most of the time and I try to put in some strange ones that won't be mentioned much so that we have some sweets left for the rest of the week. However this year M Russell Ballard cleared me out of 6 of my 7 bowls and he was only the second speaker. I don't think any of us got much of the talk as we were laughing so much at the kids jumping up and down every few seconds. Think I might have to work on a new idea for October.
ReplyDeleteOh dear! The candy bowls have been a tradition for us, and the kids look forward to it, but I will also admit that it brings it's fair share of frustration for me! The thing that has been bugging me the last couple years is that the kids are constantly up and down, up and down, fetching candy from the bowl during the talks. And it's so distracting for me as I'm trying to listen. So this year I gave them a piece of paper with a column for each word. When they heard the word they could make a tally mark. Then they could ONLY claim their treats during the songs. I KNOW my 8 year old took way may candy than she should have, and by Sunday I stopped caring about being the candy police. But the boys seemed to be more honest with their candy acquisitions. I will say that it has gotten better as they have gotten older. And it keeps them in the room without complaints.
ReplyDeleteSorry it was rough!